


The Difference Between Knowledge and Knowing

by otppurefuckingmagic



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Falling In Love, Feels, Fluff, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 09:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15240057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otppurefuckingmagic/pseuds/otppurefuckingmagic
Summary: How Magnus sees the world through the lens of his magic (or magic makes Magnus see everything differently but Alec is even more of an exception)





	The Difference Between Knowledge and Knowing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redtheadhanzo](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=redtheadhanzo).



> i started writing this fic almost two years ago (based on this prompt by redtheadhanzo: The moment Magnus realises Alec is the love of his life) and just...never finished it.
> 
> well, here we are two years later. this is canon-divergent (maybe?) and takes place at some point between S2E7 and S2E10 (sort of?). regardless, it was time to let these words go.

Magnus watches as Alec traces his fingers over the spines of the books, his attention, rapt, on the collection Camille has been building for centuries. It’s a waste of knowledge, Magnus thinks. Camille hoards. Doesn’t appreciate. She’s more attuned to the extrinsic value of each volume instead of how the words inside could alter her cold, dead soul.

But Magnus is willing to concede he may be biased when it comes to Camille.

And possibly Alec as well.

It’s been weeks since Alec descended the steps of the dais—at his own wedding—and kissed Magnus. Magnus is still quite stunned that happened at all. He’s proud that Alec made the bold choice to live his own truth. And, as he searches around the room for any feeling besides disdain for the women he used to love, he’s perplexed that Alec has seemingly chosen him. Magnus carries hundreds of years of baggage, and more exes than he probably should have admitted to out loud.

They’re here on an errand for Clary and her ever-present penchant for working herself into situations that only have impossible solutions, yet that this is one of Camille’s residences seems to be having no effect on the eldest Lightwood. Alec is seemingly enraptured with the scale of Camille’s library. Magnus wonders if it really is the books that he’s focused on, though, or if he’s searching for the same hints of his and Camille’s failed relationship that Magnus is.

“What do you see when you look at them?” Magnus asks.

Alec turns just his head toward Magnus, lifting an eyebrow. His hands are clasped behind his back. “The books?”

“There’s little else in here besides those and me, darling,” Magnus says with all confidence, even though his skin prickles with unease. “I already know what you see when you look at me.”

Alec scoffs, a half-smile of guarded joy tipping up the edge of his lips. It isn’t an answer in any way, or any kind of reassurance. But Alec’s facial expressions and wordless guttural responses are only one small piece of how Magnus interprets the truth from Alec.

Magnus eases at everything he does see in, and around, Alec. He exhales, relaxes his shoulders and begins to scan the spines of the books. “I don’t think what we’re looking for is here.”

Alec nods, his lips pursed together in thought. But he doesn’t move to leave. He tracks back and forth in front of the shelves, a diminishing circle of movement that repeatedly takes him past one particular volume. Alec’s eyes land on the book over and over again, but he never reaches out to touch it.

There’s a tingling at the base of Magnus’ neck. A sensation much like the first time he stood in the peaks of the Himalayas—of standing at the edge of unlimited adventure in the vast distance in front of him and the potential for imminent destruction below him with one wrong step.

Magnus fights against the pull of certain gravity and decides to leap. “That book you keep on returning to….”

Alec stops in his tracks. “The one that’s bending the shelf?”

“Why do you keep going back to that one?” That’s not quite the right question. Magnus takes a deep breath. “How do you see it?”

Alec shrugs. “It’s, uh, big. And old.”

Magnus can’t help but smile. “Really, Alexander?”

“I don’t know. It’s black, maybe leather. With gold lettering and gold-edged pages. It’s obviously heavy and it has this faint scent of….” Alec furrows his brow as he leans in. “It actually smells like your magic.”

Magnus takes a step closer to Alec, intrigued. “My magic has a scent?”

Alec nods. “Yeah. You didn’t know that?

“Well, there are all those herbs and varied ingredients—”

“Not those,” Alec cuts in. He clears his throat. “You.”

“Interesting.” That is a conversation they’ll have to pick up at another time. “ _That_ is my book.”

Alec finally reaches out, fingertips sliding down the worn leather with an almost reverent caress.

“This one is yours?”

“Yes. And I’m curious what drew you to it more than the others…. Are you sure that the very obvious physical characteristics are all you see in it?”

“I guess.” Alec shrugs and steps back, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Why? What do you see?”

Magnus brushes his lips together. This is a truth he’s only told to three other people, and one of those people is no longer of this earth. This is a truth he doesn’t want to hold back from Alec anymore, though, because he has a feeling that even if Alec doesn’t see exactly what he does, there is a recognition there nonetheless. One that is just as strong. Just as inescapable.

“I see the power of the spells inside,” he begins. “I see remnants of every hand that has ever touched that book….”

“Like fingerprints?”

“More abstract than that. Have you heard about auras?”

Alec shakes his head, eyebrows creased in confusion.

“It’s a mundane term. One that loosely equates to the properties of one’s soul, as seen from the outside. A unique energy field—influenced by circumstance and emotion.”

“So you see auras?”

It’s so like Alec to not question that an energy field is present at all. Unlike mundanes, he’s intimately aware of forces that can only be explained by the spiritual and supernatural. And unlike other Shadowhunters, he’s open to possibilities that the tradition-hemmed Clave would never consider.

“Not exactly. But for lack of a better term, let’s go with that.” Magnus dances his fingers through the air, manipulating—playing—with the fields all around him. “What I see…. It’s more like water. Essentially colorless and without form—yet responsive and changeable. Absorbing colors around it. Reflecting what’s inside and mirroring external forces. When you break the surface of calm waters there are ripples or bubbles. Droplets when you pull your hand away. I see those disturbances and echoes. And not just in people. Objects, animals, buildings, nature…. I see both the physical and the incorporeal through the lens of my magic.”

Alec tracks the movement of Magnus’ hand. “Isn’t that overwhelming?”

Magnus snaps his hand shut and allows the fields to settle. To smooth out like a glassy morning lake. “It’s the way I see the world. It’s the only way I’ve ever known. It took me a hundred years to discover that others didn’t see the way I did.”

Alec hikes his quiver up his shoulder. “What about me?”

Magnus lifts an eyebrow, tips his head, and studies Alec. Isn’t that the question Magnus has been asking himself for weeks now.

Alec…. He feels in a way that others don’t open themselves up to experiencing. “All auras fall along a spectrum, but yours is particularly vibrant.”

“I’m a….” Alec chuckles lowly. “I’m a rainbow?”

Magnus smirks. “It’s not that simple. Remember I said that what I see is colorless.”

“You said ‘essentially colorless.’”

That Alec listens to what Magnus says, not just hears him, is a fact Magnus has already filed away. It doesn’t cease to surprise and delight him, though.

“I did. You are—” Magnus swallows, realizes that what he’s about to say has the possibility of scaring Alec away. But he can’t stop now. Doesn’t want to. “Your aura…. It’s alive. A living piece of you even though you can’t see it like I do. There is constant movement and a flow of energy. Moving with you, trailing behind you….” Magnus pauses to gather his thoughts. He doesn’t know how to explain to Alec that he sees Alec emotionally reaching out for him, even when he’s physically drawing away. “Sometimes even leading you in a direction you want to go, but may not be headed. It’s especially active when you are at your quietest.”

Alec doesn’t move, but the field around him contracts—fitting against him like armor…. Except for where Magnus stands in front of him. “Can others see that? Feel it?”

Magnus considers that. He spent fifty years at one point in his life seeking out people who purported to see auras, only to be left with the reality that others could feel them, but none actually saw them the way he did. That’s not the answer Alec is looking for, though.

“Have you ever met someone who seemed to wear every emotion as a brand on their forehead? Take for example, Simon.”

“Yeah. I think I know what you mean.”

“His energy field is like a bucket of dye dropped into the ocean—there’s no boundaries to hold it in place and anyone can scoop it into their hands and study the color and texture. He opens himself up to that. You, however, are closed off when you’re around most people. A barrier that fluctuates from being as fleeting and fragile as a bubble when you’re around those you trust, to as impenetrable and lethally-edged as an adamas blade to those you don’t. With Jace, there are no barriers at all—even when you’re mad at him. As if you’re angelic bond doesn’t allow you to shut him out.”

Alec rolls his eyes. “Of course it doesn’t.”

“I’ve seen a similar effect with many parabatai before you. That facet of your aura isn’t unique.”

Alec scrunches his eyebrows together. “There’s something that is, though? That you haven’t seen before?”

Magnus hesitates. It’s become increasingly clear that the way he sees Alec can be summarized in a three word declaration—one that he’s not ready to say out loud.  But this…. This may be even more intimate. Even more telling. The way he sees the world isn’t overwhelming, but he’s never seen anyone quite the way he sees Alec. And it opens up a realm of possibilities Magnus had left dead and buried many decades ago.

It’s not a conversation he expected to have today, let alone in one of Camille’s homes of all places. But there has to be a point where he lets his guard down. Because this unfettered access to Alec’s emotions has always been open to him—by Alec’s choice, whether he realizes it or not—and Magnus owes it to Alec to verbalize what he cannot see.

To finally allow his Shadowhunter all the way in.

“It’s not just your personal aura. Yours and mine….” Magnus hovers his hand over Alec’s chest, searching for words to explain what he sees. “They are like the shoreline. Right now, there are…waves crashing out of you—like a storm-surge sweeping in—and mine is like the shifting sand, molding to the shape of the waves and being drawn out. Two separate entities that push and pull, yet never part.”

Alec’s throat works roughly. His eyes are fixated on Magnus’ hand. “And that hasn’t ever— With anyone—”

Magnus looks up at Alec. Holds the enormity of his confession in his lungs for a moment, because once it passes over his lips it can never be taken back. “No one else. Ever.”

Alec lifts his hand, palm to palm with Magnus’, and this isn’t merely a surge, this is the whipping frenzy of a hurricane. Alec’s chest moves as if he’s just dropped out of a full sprint.

He drops his eyes to Magnus’. “I wish I could see it too.”

“Maybe I could….” Magnus considers. “If I tap into your voyance rune, it may be possible.”

Alec nods. “Yeah. But not here.”

Magnus smiles.

His Shadowhunter is nothing if not ever practical. “Grab my book and let’s go.”

 

****

 

Alec can’t stand still.

Now that they’re out of Camille’s apartment and back to the safety of Magnus’ loft, he intellectually knows that it’s okay to let his guard down. But he can’t.

He holds Magnus’ book in his hands as he paces, attempting to answer Magnus’ question definitively and unearth words that accurately describe why he was drawn to this volume more than any of the thousands of books lining Camille’s shelves.

With as many years as Magnus and Camille were together, he has to assume that this leather-bound tome isn’t the only one of Magnus’ in Camille’s vast library, so this one….

What does it mean to Magnus?

His steps slow as he opens the book and flips through the yellowed pages. Each page is handwritten, in a language Alec can’t decipher, and yet…. His chest tightens and his breath stutters into shallow pulls.

“This doesn’t just belong to you,” Alec says as Magnus finally joins him on the balcony. He lifts his eyes to Magnus’. “You wrote this.”

Magnus blinks. Opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. His head bows as he approaches, the line of his jaw sharpening with either restraint or deep thought.

Regardless of which reaction he’s witnessing, Alec waits. Everyone else demands answers from Magnus, as if they’re owed access to his thoughts simply because his knowledge spans hundreds of years more than anyone else around him. As if those hundred of years are a commodity instead of individual moments composed of breath, life, and emotion just like any other living being.

Magnus grips the railing tightly, knuckles whitening as he rocks forward and lifts his gaze to the New York skyline. There’s a smile playing at the edges of his lips when he catches Alec’s gaze again. “Don’t do that to me, Alexander.”

Alec sets the book aside and takes up the spot next to Magnus. Far enough to give Magnus space to think, yet close enough to notice how Magnus subtly shifts in his direction. “Do what?”

“I know how you feel about me,” Magnus says. Alec hears the traces of his guilt in his voice. “I saw your attraction to me in the beginning, but in the last few weeks….”

Alec swallows against the tightness in his throat and refuses to look away.

He’s in awe of Magnus’ kindness. Captivated by Magnus’ confidence and intelligence. He’s been stripped bare by Magnus’ golden eyes and chosen to reveal pieces of himself to Magnus that he believed no one would ever see.

He’s fallen irrevocably in love with Magnus in the last few weeks and Shadowhunters love once and they love fiercely but he thinks…. He thinks Magnus may be just as lost—just as _found_ —as him.

Alec slips his stele from his pocket. “Will you show me?”

Magnus’ shoulders lift with a deep inhale and he nods.

Alec’s skin heats with the sweep of his stele over the rune, flashing to life with an audible hiss. His vision shifts, opening him up to a normally veiled view of the world. But he has a feeling this rune is like removing a mask, and how Magnus sees _him_ through the lens of his magic….

If Alec sees it too, that knowledge will change everything.

There must be something that flits across his features, or a shift in the push and pull of his aura, because Magnus hesitates. His fingers hover above Alec’s skin, blue wisps of possibly limitless power arcing over a graceful hand.

“Please,” is all Alec can say.

“Tell me if this hurts.”

Alec braces himself.

But the pain never comes.

Magnus’ magic brushes over his skin like a caress, the calming scent of centuries-old strength washing over him. The cacophony of the city fades into the background as his world comes alive with unending movement, and in the center of that movement—an ocean of eddies, tides, and cresting waves radiating in, out, and around—he sees _them_.

Yes, it’s like the shoreline, but it’s also like the horizon, earth and air in constant, inseparable contact. It’s the planets and stars supposedly resting in a void, yet drawn into synchronized paths by a force that can be measured, quantified, and studied but its origin remains elusive.

The smile on Magnus’ lips tugs at Alec’s chest, inexplicably, unerringly drawing him in just like Magnus’ book. Alec’s life has been ruled by order—by knowledge of enemies, tactics, and strategy. And Magnus’ life has been built on the knowledge that Shadowhunters can’t be trusted.

But this is the difference between knowledge and knowing.

Magnus draws him closer and the waves between them swirl into one. Alec gives in, gives himself over, just as much as Magnus already has.

It’s overwhelming.

“Fuck,” Alec rasps. “Give me a minute.”

He clamps his eyes shut. Doesn’t realize his body is swaying, knees shaking, until Magnus grasps his biceps and holds tight, steadying him. He hears the snap of Magnus drawing his magic back and knows that when he opens his eyes, this new sight will be gone, but their connection is there—tangible and yet indefinable—just like it was from the moment he first held Magnus’ hand in his.

When he meets Magnus’ unglamoured gaze, words completely elude him. But even though he’s said so little in these last few weeks, Magnus has always understood.

“I know,” Magnus says. “I know.”

Alec feels the truth in Magnus’ touch as Magnus circles a hand around his neck, yet craves hearing it again. “No one else? Ever?”

“And no one else ever again, my dearest Alexander.”

All Alec can do is kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @otppurefuckingmagic and twitter @authorsamcauley ♡ xx


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